XVII

This is the world now: steel skin, mechanical limbs, cold lips, ticking hearts. The sky is grey, the grass has been trampled, flowers do not grow, the wind does not blow, and Yongsun still refuses to touch a soldier’s skin.

Change is occurring, Yongsun is still clinging to her Theory of Life (something constant) as the world shifts and turns. She continues to ‘decorate’ soldiers, the innocent brush of a hand is almost unavoidable as the number of wounded rises.

She hears the bombs and gunshots getting closer, the rebels, the anarchists, the regiment, are getting nearer. Yongsun does not have time to fear for her life as she mercilessly saws off a young woman’s arm, blood spilling everywhere; on Yongsun’s uniform, her shoes, the floor, the sheets.

The young soldier screams in agony, Yongsun tears off the sleeve from her uniform, rolls it up and forces it into the woman’s mouth so she has something to bite down on. Yongsun calls out for a nurse, asking them to bring anaesthetics, painkillers, a sheet of steel — anything to lessen the pain. A young nurse, one of the new recruits, stands frozen behind Yongsun, shocked at the scene unfolding in front of her.